Blood Sweat &…Heels? 9th Year Anniversary Release #9

The promised ninth release that made me succumb to fever. (It was actually food poisoning.) (Do people normally run fevers when they catch food poisoning?)

I could introduce Suppli by saying, “…From the author of &,” but of course I won’t. (Even though I just did, didn’t I? Heh.) Suppli really stands out on its own as something quite different altogether. The mood is, of course, the signature downbeat Okazaki. But one thing I love is that it’s about work and life. My office life with all of its stressful workplace politics, gender inequality, and burgeoning romances lives in-between these pages. THIS. IS. MY. LIFE. SOMEONE. UNDERSTANDS. (๑◕︵◕๑)

The story opens up with Minami leaving for work on a day her boyfriend has off. He sulkily asks her the dreaded question, “Which is more important to you – work or me?” In my mind, I was like, to hell with you, Guy Whose Name I already Forgot! Let the girl go to work! I mean, just look at this stink-face he makes when she’s about to leave:
But if I had to be honest, it was a question that I struggled with internally for a very long time.

Suppli was published by Shodensha, and ran in the magazine Feel Young since 2004. It ended its serialization in the December 2009 issue. I had been reading Feel Young almost religiously back then, but when SwirlyOwl brought Suppli up as a potential project to me, I admit there was a moment where I paused and scratched my head. I was so busy reading my favorites, that I completely missed out on this amazing story.

Thank you to the Suppli team for working hard to get this chapter done. Thank you, Megan, for letting me disturb you late at night on Discord to proofread again and again. Thank you, Aerial, for all of your input. And a BIG thank you to SwirlyOwl for your selfless labor of love. Because of you we got one chapter down, have two volumes cleaned and ready, and plenty more on the way.

Release Updates:
As you saw in Part 1 of our Anniversary release, we did have new projects. A few more on the way. We don’t release any new projects without having cleans prepared in advance for more consistent releases. But if you’re worried about us losing focus, let me reassure you that our main goal is to finish up our ongoing projects. We will be resuming all of our ongoing projects in the months ahead, including favorites like Futago and Toribako House.

Please leave a comment if you have questions about any particular series.

Ooooh!
I love Suppli and I have all volumes in Polish but the translation, especially in the first few volumes is soo bad XD
I was longing for someone to do scans of this manga so I can read a better translation and I’m really happy it’s you guys!

Pshaw, that’s nothing! I’m still waiting to see the end of quite a few (dropped) series after 15 years! ｡゜(ＴヮＴ)゜｡ … orz
(This being the reason I no longer read stuff until it’s like, totally 100% SUPER COMPLETELY done… also because the wait times between chapters either kills me or I forget what was going on and have to re-read the series every time there’s an update (゜∀ ゜);;)

It’s true it’s hard to pick some series back up after it’s been a while! It’s happened a couple times to me, but most of the Stiletto Heel projects are so good I’ll read the latest chapter even if it’s been a while.